LOVE & MERCY was really good.
For starters, after seeing this, plus having seen SAVING MR. BANKS last year, I think I'm really convinced now that Paul Giamatti is a better actor than I used to give him credit for - he was really convincing as Brian Wilson's ax-crazy and manipulative psychotherapist.
But as for the movie itself, it's a really interesting study of Brian Wilson's life, from his days with the Beach Boys in the 60s, to his turmoil in the 80s between meeting a new woman he loves yet is convinced he's paranoid and delusional by his previously mentioned psychotherapist.
I also have to say that I actually found some of the movie relatable. At least, in the ways young Wilson always had so many different ideas whizzing through his head all the time, and always trying to release those ideas from his head and make them reality. I think he was to pop music in the 60s what Jim Henson was to puppetry back when he was alive, as Wilson was always a bit ahead of his time in terms of not just his music, but his techniques and methods of recording and orchestrating.
It's also refreshing to see a biopic that doesn't rely too heavily on fictionalizing and dramatizing the person's life, Brian Wilson himself even says the movie is very factual of what his life was like, and was even scared by Giamatti's spot-on performance of his therapist; he also notes that Paul Dano's portrayal as himself when he was younger in his Beach Boys days were particularly more accurate and authentic compared to John Cusack's portrayal of him during his dazed and confused days in the 80s.